“And the kid?” Cap said in amusement.
“Hey, he stole my purse. What was I supposed to do?”
Cap was silent for a second. “Um…notshove him through a window?”
I rolled my eyes at the ridiculousness of that statement. “You know, you all judge me, but he had it coming!”
“Yeah,” Cap agreed in a rather dull manner. “I can see it now. Criminal gangster, up to no good. So pathetic, he stole your purse—probably for money for food. What other reaction would you have?”
This was getting nowhere fast, and the longer we stayed on the phone, the more pissed off I got. “That’s not why we’re calling.”
“Really? Cuz I just thought this would be another situation I had to clean up.”
“I want to know why you gave us two hundred thousand dollars,” I snapped.
“Did you not want it? I mean, I can always take it back if you don’t want it. There are a few pieces of equipment I wanted to get?—”
“Why did you do it?” Parker interrupted. “We’re not a charity case, you know.”
“I never said you were.”
“And we don’t work for handouts,” I added.
“Guys, I think you’re misunderstanding how a job works. See, I hand out a case. Then you do the work, and in return, you get paid for it. Generally speaking, I’m not sure how you misinterpreted that.”
“Wait, so you really were paying us for the job?” Parker asked in confusion.
“Well, you did help save the world. Honestly, I feel you should have gotten more, but things were a little tight. Not to mention that Alec went behind my back and purchased a howitzer for the company. I’m not sure when we’ll ever use it, but he claims it’s for our protection.”
Come to think of it… “That is pretty cool,” I agreed.
“Good, then you can give me back the two hundred thousand, and in return, I’ll give you the howitzer.”
“Well, let’s not rush into negotiations,” Parker added quickly. “I mean, you have much more use for a cannon than we do.”
“Right,” I chuckled. “The town might get a little nervous if they saw us carting that around.”
“Because it’s so easy to cart around a cannon?” Cap asked.
“Well, generally speaking.”
“So…that’s it? I can get off the phone now? There are no issues we need to work out?”
“I guess not,” I frowned.
“Good, because as much as I love having nonsensical conversations at the ass crack of dawn, I have other things to do.”
“You didn’t get Maggie pregnant again, did you?”
He sighed heavily. “Yeah, that’s really funny.”
“Seriously, did you?”
“I’m hanging up now.”
“Oh, hey, Cap!” Parker said quickly. “We have a little news to share of our own.”
I signaled for him to stop, but he just kept going.
